A blast from the past...

Every now and then you can find yourself thumbing through old sketch books. It’s usually an adventure.....Old projects, clients, ideas, concerns, positions and explorations come flooding back, encoded in the small drawings and notes that pin point moments in time. All starting points for something much bigger....

The other day I found some sketches I made while working on the Manchester city centre master plan. The frequent train journeys made between London and Manchester provided that ideal ‘in –between’ time where ideas usually flow and form. There on just a couple of pages were the first ideas of how to provide a new active street fronting skin for the Arndale. The master plan required the Arndale to look outwards, to turn it inside out; a tricky problem that required the linking different levels across a very short space while also keeping the retail viable and functional. As the sketch shows it could only be solved in section. A visit to WH Smiths now, shows how it was done and how in the end we got a much better street. Then there was the idea of new footbridge linking the upper level of the Arndale to the new M&S. We knew it had to be light, see through, and iconic. I remember working with Arups on this idea and as the sketches show we wanted a lattice, cable net type thing, appearing to be hung and stretched between the two buildings. Stephen Hodder took it on and made it something rather wonderful.

The date? Just a year or so after the bomb!

Back from the sea...

Just returned from what Rob and Leon Krier would call the traditional European City; Dubrovnik. A Baroque walled city originally made up two islands until the Romans filled in the gap and made a beautiful fortified city. The pattern of the city is fascinating. At once it reveals its past, its topography, its function and its climate. To the north the Roman grid climbs up the hill side, narrow and functional. To the south the city spreads and distorts into a Gothic medieval pattern of gardens, courts, Churches and palaces. The main street is the hinge that joins this all together, knowing that some time in the past this short, wonderful street would have been a narrow sea passage.

The city is small and from its walls its morphology can be drawn from above and its compelling section seen, stretching from the Adriatic from which it defends itself, right into mountains in which it buries itself.

Here are my attempts at trying to capture the city...

MT

Shape family photo...

Here we are in the heart of Manchester. From let to right we have: Justine (in charge of our marketing campaign), Geoff, one of our Shape Agents from Edinburgh, Mick, Matt, Shelagh, Ste and Dave from our Edinburgh studio. Sadly missing are Anna, our model maker and John F from DPP. Manchester, as ever in under reconstruction...

Too Busy to Blog

5 mlynedd ers hynny, mae llawer wedi newid yn economi’r DU ac mae tueddiadau byd-eang, cenedlaethol a lleol wrth’n neweid ac yn dylanwadu ar y ffordd yr ydym yn cynllunio, adnewyddu, trwsio ac adeiladu ein trefi a’n dinasoedd.

Apologies to all Welsh speakers if that’s not quite right!

We haven’t been blogging because we have just been too busy to blog and have not so much been learning Welsh as getting to grips with our wonderful new project win! – West Rhyl – what a great team we are leading and what an exciting project we are about to begin!

Here at Shape we are raring to go on ideas, plans and conversations with the people of Rhyl, Denbighshire County Council and the Welsh Assembly – our new client.

Here are some photos from “Our Day Out” in Rhyl which has definitely paid off for Shape!

Taking Shape at last...

Last week saw the beginning of our very first financial year (1st May). DPP Shape is up and running and very busy.

The timing of Shape’s start is key to our business model. Everything is changing. Certainties are less clear. We all need to revaluate how we do things. Particularly, how we can be, better, quicker, smarter, greener and cheaper…fundamentally, more content and less packaging. Content, means for us and hopefully for everyone else, an emphasis on ideas, creative ingenuity and enthusiasm, directed closely to the problem at hand, by people who really know how to make a difference. The packaging…in this case, an unhealthy and expensive reliance on overbearing business systems, protocols and hierarchical structures that promote mediocrity and stasis. We are now witnessing the collapse of large scale systems by an inability to respond quickly and effectively, or even predict a future, which they themselves claim to shape…. I am thinking of the car and banking industry of course.

So Shape is emerging out of dramatic change. Although in a sense nothing has changed. We still need to design and plan our way out of climate, economic and social meltdown. We still need to regenerate and strengthen all of those failing communities, bring back to life all of those desperate places, build all of those much needed houses – and most importantly continue to shape our towns and cities into, beautiful, thriving and increasingly sustainable ventures.

So what is Shape’s ethos, philosophy etc…?

Well Shelagh and I are in the position of not having to invent something here. Years of experience have shaped our values, judgement and enthusiasms. What we do - Shape is. We just have to find the time to write it all down for those who might be interested.

However, for now I can safely say that we, orchestrate, shape and define change on behalf of others. This means we have to responsibly think things through mostly with other closely involved people, which also means we have to foster, encourage and collaborate creatively and effectively.

We also believe that solutions are discovered rather than invented, convinced that the powerful idea lies in the place and people who are part of it, rather than the mind – but also knowing that the right mind set is needed to see it…

And finally to know that, statistics, information, and analysis only serve to define the problem and tailor the idea. They are not the idea…. we still need someone to sit down in front a blank piece of paper and draw, while exclaiming…’ why don’t we do something like this?’

So that everyone else can see the idea too and together we can shape it and make it happen.

Mick Timpson

Thoughts on the Ice Age

First day back at work after my great hols.

I am just back from my annual retreat to the far north west of Scotland where the landscape never changes! Well it seems to never change and in my miniscule lifetime it never will – that is reassuring and fills me with renewed vigour and enriched spirit to pursue my life and work based in the World’s first industrial city where daily change is relentlessly exciting!

As usual after a holiday I like to re – connect with all my friends and family and work colleagues. Starting a new business is giving us all here at Shape an extra something in every working day! Call it excitement – call it fear – whatever it is, it’s certainly exciting!

Mick Timpson and I have been dreaming and scheming and working with the top people at DPP to create a new business in what is the worst recession since the ice age according to some and the greatest opportunity for creative entrepreneurs according to others. We are all living and breathing the articles of association, the shareholders agreement, the instructions to graphic designers and I can’t remember the new office number yet which is slightly embarrassing when new clients ask where to get hold of us?

Shape is the name of our new urban design, master planning and regeneration consultancy business. We are interested in working with anyone involved in improving the physical fabric within which we all live, work and play – from the strategic scale through to individual sites and buildings. We know what we mean and setting this new business up means we must keep explaining what we are about – a new name around town needs introducing and that reminds me – PR strategy is on that to do list!

As well as ideas we have the support of half a dozen investors from the national planning consultancy DPP and a brand new independent company with a small board of just 4 directors – including Mick and I. We have desks based in Manchester and IT and our small team of urban designers is in place – Ste and Matt are already working hard and we have clients too! This is all still new to us, our friends and colleagues throughout the north west and beyond - and I must admit to relishing the newness!

So many friends and colleagues are taking the opportunity of the changing economy to start great new things – based in Manchester and reaching out across the country to spread the benefits of some fantastic experience and ideas coming out of the regeneration world! More about those people later…….

Mick Timpson and I are in the first month of our 3 year business plan and totally focussed on putting in place our ideas about making the workplace creative, relevant, successful and responsive . We are called “Shape” quite simply because we want to continue to shape change and believe that how places are planned and built and renewed, demolished, adapted and renewed again is important. Its important for us as professionals working together as architects and planners to use our experiences in a way that is beneficial to the quality of people’s lives – the lives of our fellow human beings living in places of change but also our fellow work colleagues - our collaborators and competitors – we should be all adding to the body of knowledge, skill and insight in the interests of progress! – Yes – call me old fashioned – a greater good hey! After many years of resistance I can now call myself hopelessly old fashioned – the work place must be interesting and stimulating and how we spend our days should be leading to progress in some form – not just in our marketing leaflets but in real time experiences with the people we work alongside and in the places our ideas are implemented.

Our talents and experiences have been moulded by a 20 year process of personal and professional development in the worlds of design, architecture, regeneration, development, and planning – all the disciplines and processes that shape our physical world and will continue to do so inspite of the apparent economic ice age that will carve out an entirely new landscape for us all to operate within.

Anyway – its getting late – holiday photo at the top– this landscape was formed 3 billion years ago – one of the oldest on the planet – its Lewisian Gneiss and I like it a lot!